


why we never say those words

by lavenderseaslug



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Again, F/M, slime puppy on reality tv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderseaslug/pseuds/lavenderseaslug
Summary: Roman Roy is the newest Bachelor in the franchise, and Gerri is the one who has to corral him into something that's presentable to the public.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 78
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [JustLikeAPapercut]() for being a champ and a pal. Thanks to the people in that twitter convo. Thanks to all the people of the world who care about Roman and Gerri. 
> 
> This is chaptered! There will be updates! They will happen! Think of it as an unreliable Advent Calendar.

_And when we talk, it turns me on  
_ _And naturally that leads to love_  
 _And it makes me want you more  
_ _Every day I want you more_

Paradise (Odessa)

Gerri Kellman adjusts her earpiece, moves the microphone away from her mouth. It’s only when she’s sure that no one will be able to pick up the sound that she sighs. Loudly. _I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down_ , she thinks. If only the solution to Roman Roy was that simple. Instead, she’s stuck with him for the next eight weeks. For plane travel and limo rides. He can yell into her earpiece and she’s not supposed to yell back because he’s the talent, he’s the boss. And he’s insufferable.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he were stupid, Gerri thinks, because stupid is malleable. But Roman is smart. Smart and lazy, a lifetime of getting whatever he wanted without much work at all. And now he’ll have thirty women paraded in front of him and he’ll smirk like he deserves it. She hates this job sometimes, and sometimes she doesn’t, but she thinks Roman Roy will make her hate this job the most. Or he’ll make it the most interesting, and she doesn’t know where the chips will fall.

He’s not a typical Bachelor, not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not that he’s hideous, but he’s scrawny. Gerri doubts that he has anything resembling six-pack abs underneath his Brooks Brothers suit. The network made a deal with his father, substantial amounts of money changing hands, and everyone knows it, even if no one says anything. The hard work won’t be having him on the show; it will be to edit him in a positive and glowing light, giving all that coveted, hard-to-get good press to Waystar Royco as a side effect. She doesn’t particularly love having that stricture in place, because she thinks, more than anything, this would be a season to highlight the inanity of the male ego, Roman Roy at the center, but her hands are tied.

Her earpiece crackles, her moment of respite is over, and she moves the microphone back in place. “All right, limo drivers in place, producers with the girls, get your picks and get them ready. I’ll talk to the talent,” she says, voice stern and sharp, and she knows at least twenty people snapped to attention at the sound. Twenty people who all know that “the talent” is shorthand to keep from saying “that fuckboy asshole with floppy hair.”

Roman is in his room, opening the door a few delayed moments after her knock. His tie is askew, suit slightly rumpled, like he’s been napping, and not on the brink of a television show focusing on his love life. His dark eyes watch her as she opens the door, and shuts it after her. She doesn’t know what he’s thinking in these moments, if he’s sizing her up, trying to figure out what he can get away with. Without a thought, Gerri steps to him, her hands going to his shirt collar, tucking it down, adjusting the knot of his tie, a practiced gesture from her former life as a married woman, a whole different world. Now she’s a widow with no grief and story producer with no patience.

“Are you ready?” she asks, her face tilted down as she focuses on the task at hand. She can imagine he’s looking at her through hooded eyes, and she can smell his cologne, which is very terrible.

“Always,” he says, glib and bored and easy, and there’s something about him that just sets her teeth on edge. The weeks leading up to this, the primping his ego, the nonchalance that he projects, it all makes her just want to drive her knee home between his legs and leave him doubled up on the floor. “You got rid of the uggos?”

As if even one woman with below two thousand followers on Instagram made it past their casting filters, each one a platonic ideal of youth and blandness. “The ugly ones had too much personality for you,” she answers, jerking his tie in place firmly and then stepping back. His cheeks are flushed and she thinks maybe there’s nerves beneath his bluster.

“Glad to hear it. Boring is what I want. What any man wants, really. Like a picture frame for my awesomeness.” He strikes a pose, hands on hips, and she lets him stay that way for all of five seconds before telling him to find someone in wardrobe to steam out his trousers or give him a new suit.

When she sees him on the screens in the production room, he looks sharp, more like an adult than she’s seen before now. His hair is combed back, his chin has just enough stubble to hide the babyface. It’s the magic of television, taking a cat and teaching it to walk on its hind legs. Perhaps it’s the distance between them, rooms apart and the camera lens adding ten years of maturity and depth.

She’s in his ear for all of the introductions, not telling him exactly what to say, but not letting him have free reign either. “You can give a hug, it’s not like she’s got the plague.” “What are you, a monk? She just wants to kiss you on the cheek.” “You didn’t have to look so horrified at her turkey costume, that was the movie you produced.” It’s made all the more sweet by the fact that he can’t really respond, that he’s being filmed and she isn’t. This is where the job is worth it.

Even though Gerri has been selecting these women for the past month, the Kristas and Beccas blur together. Tabitha makes an impression, taller than Roman, and maybe smarter. No gimmicks with her intro, just a handshake, like they’re going into business together. And with the way this franchise is going, maybe they are. “If you can’t find me later, just look over everyone’s heads,” she says with a smile, and it almost makes Roman laugh.

There’s Rava and Willa and Gerri thinks they’re chaff, cut sooner rather than later. They are bad, they’re just not for Roman. Too put together, too flighty, respectively. Grace is elegant and quiet and maybe that’s enough, because Roman does turn to watch her enter the mansion. Whether it’s because of her ass or the impression she made, Gerri isn’t sure. She’d put her money on Tall Tabitha or Quiet Grace for the first impression rose, and she’s not usually wrong.

She pulls Roman aside to get some soundbites they can use before the cocktail party officially starts. Normally, she’d expect some bland platitudes about having a “great group of women,” and “I think my future wife could be in that room,” but Roman isn’t at all the type to give her bland, to give her expected and trite.

“Fuck, don’t they ever want to film that where the bachelor gets to sit down? Or wears comfortable shoes? I’m wearing slippers to every fucking rose ceremony,” Roman grouses as he settles in the chair, adjusting his lapel mic as Gerri sits across from him, crossing her legs. She might be imagining it but she thinks his eyes follow the hemline of her skirt as it rides up. She resists the urge to adjust, to pull it back down.

“With or without bunny ears?” she asks, looking down at the clipboard.

“Maybe a different pair for each time. Shitty bunnies and, like, Looney Tunes. Tweety Bird looking up my pant leg, whatever.” She’s torn between laughing and making him think this kind of behavior is encouraged or looking at him over the rim of her glasses, corralling him back into place.

“What are your thoughts about all of your introductions?” she asks instead. “Anyone particularly catch your eye?”

Roman groans, slides down in the chair a little, his head hitting the top rail, the tan plush pillowing him, and he looks like a kid waiting for his father to finish his business meeting. Which is maybe all Roman really is anyway, at his core. “Do we have to do that inane bullshit? Everyone was great, I can’t wait to spend more time with them, blah blah fucking blah?”

“Take out the blah blahs and we have our sound bite,” she says, fingers curving over the top of the clipboard, pushing it down against her lap. “Why did you come on this show, Roman?” she asks, and maybe it’s the first time she’s said his name out loud because his eyebrow lifts just so.

“Because Daddy dearest wants to rehabilitate my image,” he says, pushing himself back up to almost a normal posture, though his shoulders still slouch. Maybe they do that regardless.

“You don’t care about that, though,” Gerri says. It’s a guess, but she’s spent enough time with him, read enough articles about him, stuffed in a file folder that was handed to her when he was announced as the next lead in the franchise. Image is something that has never been particularly important to him. “You could’ve gone to a food kitchen and doled out ladles of soup. Why this?”

Roman rolls his eyes and she knows that she must be close. “Okay,” he huffs. “Cameras rolling?” Gerri nods, and he arranges his face in a way that makes him look marginally less greasy and jaded, and when he speaks, his voice is full of false optimism and hope, and it’s like he’s Leave It to fucking Beaver. “It was swell meeting everyone tonight, just an absolute kick in the pants. I’m looking forward to spending more time with everyone this evening, and I just can’t wait to learn more about each one of them!” He’s one “gee willikers” away from being an extra in The Music Man.

“We’ll do our best to edit out the sarcasm,” she says, because every word was gilded with irony, but it might be the best they can do. “Is there anyone who stood out?”

“That girl in a turkey suit made an impression,” he grouses, and she thinks he must hate that he was involved in making that movie. “Who thinks ‘gobble gobble’ is a pick up line, anyway? At least she’s probably sitting on a couch still in that shitty costume.” He laughs, short and gruff, and crosses his arms. “They’re all the same, just a room full of interchangeable normos. I’ll need some kind of spreadsheet to keep them straight.”

“You liked Tabitha,” Gerri prompts, to see if she can get anything out of him, anything at all. His dark eyes flick to the camera, back to her. He crosses his legs, uncrosses his arms, sticks his hands underneath his thighs, looks very small. At the very least, the image of him standing next to Tabitha will generate some kind of press.

“Tabitha made me laugh,” he says, “and Grace was pretty. Are we done?” Gerri feels satisfaction at knowing she picked correctly warring with the frustration at not getting the content she needs to make a viable episode. Can they make a TV show where the lead only speaks in snark and satire? She signals for the camera person to leave, slides her earpiece and mic off, flicks the switch to make sure she’s not transmitting.

“Jesus, Roman,” she says, when it’s just the two of them, when his lapel mic is off too. “What the hell are we doing here? Why are you here and your older brother isn’t?”

“Because he’s always at work. Making deals, shaking hands, whatever the fuck. He’s always doing shit.” He looks like a lost little boy, and her heart twists a little, but she shakes her head, waves a hand like she’s pushing the thought away.

“Here’s an idea - you do shit. Your father paid the network a fuckton to make this happen. You want to move up, you want to earn your daddy’s affection?” His eyes snap to hers and she could swear his already bunched shoulders move towards his ears even further. “Make this work. Do something that your father can point to when he says you know how to do what’s asked of you. He asked you to do this, and you won’t tell me why it’s this and not any other number of bullshit shows or empty gestures, but you’re here, and you’re making my life fucking difficult. I’ll put up with a lot, but I won’t put up with that.” She leans back in her chair and pulls at the hem of her skirt, aware of his stare, of the vein in his forehead, the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, and she feels like he might be asking about more than the show, his voice clenched and raspy, like he’s expending some measure of control.

“I want you to suit up, put on your big boy trousers, the ones you didn’t buy in the juniors section, and say the meaningless words and make those women think you aren’t just a fucking water bear in a human suit. You will pretend to be interested in their lifestyle blogs and their swimwear brands and whatever else pops into their mostly empty heads, and then you will come back here and give me some goddamn sound bites so you can get a pat on the head from Logan Roy when this is all over.” She’s leaning forward now, and so is he, and they’re closer than she thought. She can see a bead of sweat on his upper lip, that his breathing is strained, that he _likes_ this. Likes it in a way that makes her stomach twist not unpleasantly. Likes it in a way that she has to shelve for later. When she’s not two feet away from him, when they’re not locked alone in a room with ugly chairs and TV lighting.

There’s a knock on the door, and they both straighten, pushing back from each other like two magnets springing apart. The cameraman comes back, the mics turn back on, and Roman behaves himself for thirty minutes, then goes out to the cocktail party, doesn’t look back at Gerri when he leaves, his mic pack coiled on his chair, the faint smell of his cologne the only relic of his presence.

He behaves during the rest of the cocktail party, too. He laughs at idiotic jokes, thanks a woman for her bravery when she says that she has a fear of snails so they can’t talk out on the patio, just in case, and he lets Tabitha pull him aside for a chat that ends with her brushing her lips against his, the first real kiss of the whole season. The cameras don’t miss the way his cheeks flush and his spine straightens. Gerri wonders how many times this man has been tenderly kissed, in his whole life. He tells Grace he doesn’t know how to flirt, that he fumbles the words and says the wrong thing. She’s gentle and kind, and puts a hand on his knee, and his fingers wrap around hers. Gerri could almost be convinced she’s watching a romantic comedy unfold.

She pulls him aside once more, just to prepare him for the first impression rose, laying on a side table in production, freshly spritzed and bright, thorns clipped off. “You’ve got to think about who you want to give it to,” she says, head tilted towards him, just the two of them alone in a hallway while all the hustle and bustle goes on in the main lounge. It’s like hearing a party go on from behind a closed door, and with anyone else, she could imagine a stolen moment. But it’s Roman, and it’s her, and when it’s just the two of them, his eyes snap and his mouth curls in a smirk, and the sheen of the gentleman-for-tv is completely gone.

“How’d I do?” he asks, and the gentleman in front of the cameras melts away completely, like he’s someone vying for an A-plus on a paper, even though he hasn’t done the extra credit, just hoping his charm and joie de vivre count for something.

“You acted like a normal person for two hours. A standing ovation will be forthcoming,” she says dryly, noting that his tie is askew again, his hands fidgeting with it throughout the evening. “Who do you think you’ll give the rose to?”

“Can I give it to you?” he asks, picking up the flower, twirling it between his fingers, the petals brushing against his cheek. A picture of innocence, were it not for his dark eyes twinkling, schemes lurking, plots hatching. “You’re like this - I’ve always thought of you as this like, perfunctory kind of, like, perfect Rolodex bitch,” he says, a manic giggle tinging his words.

She blinks. “Who says you don’t know how to flirt?” It’s rhetorical, but it’s a reminder to Roman that she knows everything he says to anyone on the lot, and he pulls back a little. “When is the last time you even used a Rolodex?”

“Oh, my nanny used to tell me stories of them when I was little, no taller than her knee.” He bats his eyes in a way that is at once ridiculous and infuriatingly charming, and it softens the jab about her age. About the difference in their ages. Not that there’s any reason why that should matter.

“Well, did your nanny also tell you that it’s impolite to keep a group of overly intoxicated, over-sexed women who can only think about marriage as an achievement to be checked off waiting?” she asks, stepping away from Roman and his rose and the cologne that she doesn’t hate as much as she did hours earlier. Stockholm Syndrome: the scent. “Pick someone, tell Manny the cameraman, and he can film you making her night,” she says, turning on her heel, stalking back down the hallway, the clip of her shoes echoing. “And fix your tie.”


	2. Chapter 2

_And don't you know happiness is not a place  
_ _It's the road you take  
_ _And who you choose to walk it with  
_ _And the grass ain't always greener on the other side_

Happiness Is Not a Place (The Wind and the Wave)

Talking Roman through the first rose ceremony gives Gerri insight into what preschool teachers must experience, constantly repeating names, hissing into her microphone, anything to keep him from calling the wrong Becca for the third time so they can wrap up this whole fucking circus.

The sun is peeking above the horizon by the time they wrap, and Gerri is tired, her feet are sore, and she knows they’ll just be back at it again in eight hours. She circles around the front of the mansion, makes sure the exit interviews are finishing up. First night departures don’t have much to say, the girl that came in the turkey costume regretting her decisions, tears in her eyes while she expresses her hope for love in the future. “He just didn’t want to….gobble me up,” she says without a hint of irony and Gerri has to swallow a laugh. There’s a pureness to the naïveté of these women, who think that love can be found in eight weeks, that love is as easy to find as a penny on the pavement - all that’s waiting is for them to happen upon it.

Her marriage to Baird wasn’t love - she can see that in retrospect. She even saw it five years in, when the shine wore off. It was functional and it was fine, and she got what she needed. He died and left her money enough to burn. That’s what these women want. It’s what they _should_ want. It’s what Roman could be, easily, if they didn’t mind his mouth or his cologne or his personality. Things that can be endured for a life worth living in other ways.

She nods to camera operators and PAs, sending them off to their trailers, a few carpooling together to hotel rooms a few minutes away. She stays on site, for control, for ease, for any number of reasons. She might as well be miles away, for all the traffic to her room, tucked away on the first floor of the mansion. She’s awake before anyone else, looking at set rumors on her phone, tracking news alerts, running over date scenarios. Baird always told her the job was beneath her, she was wasting her talents and her brains.

“And you’d have me do what?” she’d retort. “Give billionaires metaphorical blowjobs to make stock prices rise?” He worked with Logan Roy, once, and she might’ve seen Roman at a party when he was in his teens, but it’s the past, long ago and another life. She takes a small seed of pleasure that she produces a show watched by millions, that even on his best day, Baird never made that impact.

The light is on in the pool house, she can make out Roman’s silhouette pacing back and forth. She pauses briefly before rapping on the door with her knuckles. He flips the blinds, fingers poking through next to his eyes, and sees that it’s her, opens the door a crack.

“You good?” she asks, as gently as she can, trying to push down the irritation and the stress, and the idea that she has weeks ahead of this bumbling misfit, arms too long for his sleeves.

“I’m good. Obviously. Like fucking Bowie at the Odeon. Un-fucking-touchable.” She doesn’t say that he gives off the impression of someone who hates to be touched, cared for, hugged.

“Do you have a list of everyone’s name in there?” she asks, gesturing behind him, where she can see wool pants bunched on the floor, kicked off the minute he stepped out of his shoes. He looks behind him, looks back at her, the door swinging slightly with his movements.

“Yeah. I’m gonna write them all out fifteen times until I know every Grace and Emily and whoever the fuck. I’ll be a good student.” He sounds petulant and small, and she can’t imagine him in a boardroom, standing up to his father.

“Don’t fuck up tomorrow. Today. Learn the girls, get some rest, and tie your shoes. No one is expecting Casanova.” She raps against the door one more time, sharp. “You can do this,” she says, trying to convince herself while bolstering him, doesn’t know how well the words come out. “Now get to it.”

“G’night, Mommy,” he calls after, sarcastic and boyish, and when she looks over her shoulder, he gives a mock salute, and she wonders what sort of woman brought this man into the world.

She sleeps without realizing, can’t remember brushing her teeth or folding her glasses on the bedside table. The first day is always the longest, getting a feel for everything, people settling back into their roles after a season away, finding the old aches and pains like forgotten memories. When she wakes, it’s before her alarm, and she begrudges the extra five minutes.

There’s been nothing alarming on the Reddit threads, Reality Steve has no leaks, it’s at least a good way to start the day. Someone did scroll back through Roman’s Instagram, found a picture of him giving a middle finger to the bronze girl statue on Wall Street. No one cares, not really, just minor “ugh” noises from commenters and tweeters. No damage control required, standard Roman behavior.

She enjoys the silence of her office before everyone’s moving around, a room with a desk, connected by a door to the main hub, the hive of activity with cameras and microphones, producers. But when she’s the only one in the space, there’s a calm and a stillness, and she feels like a puppeteer, planning the dates ahead, controlling the story, creating the narrative.

Tapping her fingers against the solid wood of the desk, sharp contrast to the sleek, functional furniture of the production room, she reaches for her phone, dials the number for the pool house, unsure of which Roman will answer the phone. Contrite and wanting to do better? Ornery and antsy? Horny and dissatisfied? She’s seen them all, fifty shades of Roy.

“You can just _call_ me now?” he grumbles into the phone, sounding like his face is still half-smushed against a pillow.

“You may be the lead, but this is my show,” she reminds him, firm, in control, the power behind the throne, the woman behind the desk. “We need to talk about the group date for this afternoon. Who do you want to invite? Grace? Tori? Emily B?” She thinks about saying a fake name, just to see if he’ll catch it.

“Ah, fuck!” His voice sounds distant, like he’s gotten up, stubbed his toes against something. There’s garbled noise against the receiver and then he says, sounding clearer, “Marry Grace, fuck Emily B, kill Tori. Emily was the one with those giant knoc-“

“This isn’t a game, Roman,” she says, suppressing a smile that no one will see.

“Actually….it kind of is a game.” She can imagine his wheedling face, thinks he might even be fiddling with the coiled phone cord like a schoolgirl in the fifties. “Okay, your turn: Tabitha, Rava, Blakely.”

“Roman.” She tries to make her voice stern, schools her features. “I’m not playing.”

“Oh come on, don’t be such a fucking drippy snotrag,” he says, half pleading, half baiting. “It’s no fun to play alone. Like no one just wants to watch one person rubbing their dick, they both have to have their dicks in their hands.”

“What a way with words you have,” she says, clearing her throat. “Don’t waste all your charm on me.”

“Oh, so you find me charming? Do I _charm_ you? Are you swooooning for me?” he asks, drawing out the word, and she can just picture those dark eyes and that thin-lipped smirk. “If you play, I’ll stop,” he levels.

“Fine. Fuck Tabitha, marry Rava...kill Blakely, I suppose.” It’s not actually a difficult choice, not one she has to mull over. Tabitha is tall and modelesque, a spitfire mare, and Rava seems smart and kind. Blakely is that vacuous one with a meaningless job title that means she really makes her money shilling hair care gummies on Instagram.

“Of course you’d fuck Tabitha, you saucy minx. You’re just a dirty girl disguised as, like, a Rubik’s cube.” He giggles, actually giggles, a choked and high sound that she both hates and finds endearing in equal measure.

“Are you done, Roman? Can you name seven women you’d like to take on a date? And then I’m going to hang up the phone and take a shower to wash off this entire conversation.” She doesn’t want to tell him that he made her smile, almost made her laugh. But she thinks he might know anyway.

-

The date was a day spent playing baseball, Roman playing a strange, inept hybrid of umpire and coach, doing well at neither, making everyone laugh. Grace manages a low bunt that gets her to first base, the most excitement available from a game that no one is good at. But the women are in short shorts and knee high socks and that’s a victory of another kind. At least the network will think so.

And now, at the evening cocktail party, it’s clear that the afternoon sun has made his cheeks pink and the champagne has made his tongue heavy. He’s still wearing one of the baseball caps made by wardrobe, an R emblazoned in blue stitching, making him look younger, the accidentally jaunty angle making him look younger, freer. The women lean into him, stealing him away from each other like a practiced dance, competitive fire masked by bland politeness.

“Group date rose,” she murmurs to Roman, gesturing to the props department to bring out the long-stemmed flower, delicately balanced on a tray. It doesn’t matter who he picks, not really. They can make storylines out of everything. A glance earlier in the night recycled to look like jealousy with the right music cue, a hand clenching a champagne glass, a soft smile. She doesn’t even pay attention to who he picks, watching the delivery of the one-on-one date card back at the mansion. It’s going to a woman named Eliza, and she’s going to be eliminated at the end of it. But she looks excited and happy, and the progression of gleeful to devastated will make for good television. She’s cannon fodder, an acceptable loss for the arc of the season.

“NRPI,” she says at the beginning of every casting. The people involved aren’t real, they’re characters to build a narrative, and that’s the mindset they always need to keep.

When production wraps up, she does her usual rounds, making sure everything is in order, women tucked in their beds and the crew buffet cleaned up, sandwich wrappers in the trash. There’s an unopened bottle of champagne, brought back in the transpo van from the group date, and Gerri snags it, takes it with her back to room, grateful for the Uggs she dug out of her closet, for feet that don’t yell with every step.

It’s after she’s showered, hair twisted back and nightshirt donned, that there’s a knock on her door. The first time, she thinks, anyone’s knocked on that door in years. She’s not in her carefully bland professional attire, she’s in an oversized shirt that skims her knees, but she answers the door all the same.

It’s Roman, leaning against the doorframe, mussed hair like he’s been running his hands through it, drawstring pants that probably cost more than a bottle of nice wine, and bare feet, like he didn’t plan to come here, like he wasn’t planning on a short walk when he left the pool house.

He cocks his head, and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes skim her lower half, feels goosebumps ripple along her calves. “Up late?” he asks, his cheeks still pink but his words clear.

She looks around him, down the empty hallway. “Get in or fuck off,” she says. “This is loitering.” And they both know there’s no bite to her words.

Roman looks around, like he’s trying to equate the functional room with the woman in front of him, and Gerri fidgets, a scrutiny she didn’t expect, and she doesn’t know what’s going on in his brain, behind the dark eyes.

“Is that champagne?” he asks, gesturing at the unopened bottle sitting on her bureau. Without answering, she uncorks it, pours it into the glass she nicked too. Drains it, refills, and hands Roman the same glass. He doesn’t look away as he drinks, and she feels a little stirring low in her belly. She blinks and looks away.

“We really had to play baseball today?” he asks. “Like of all the dumb fuckface activities, that’s what your braintrust came up with?” He takes another sip, hands the empty glass back to Gerri and she obligingly fills it again, takes a sip of her own before giving it back.

“What do _you_ want to do, Roman? Watch them Jell-O wrestle so you can see how they’d handle a ‘slippery situation’?” Air quotes ring her words - she’s always hated the ridiculous puns they try to fit into the date cards, ludicrous hints at the day’s activities. She gestures at a chair in the corner, and Roman folds his body into it, looking lanky and long, tucking one bare foot under his thigh, knee under his arm. When she settles on the bed, his eyes darken even further, staring at her bare leg, the shirt above her knees now. She almost wishes she’d grabbed a robe before answering the door, feeling exposed under his gaze. But not entirely uncomfortable.

“What about making them trade stocks for an hour, to see if they can fit into my business lifestyle?” His eyes glint. “And they have to wear bikinis.”

“That certainly sounds like something the network would go for,” she says, reaching for their glassc, their fingertips touching as she takes it back. “Wedding Dress mini golf. Who has their eyes on the prize?” There is a rack of wedding dresses that’s always in wardrobe, used multiple times, dry cleaned and hung back up.

“Back-up dancing for my brother’s rap career,” he offers, and she can’t stop the laugh, then. Everyone saw the video of Kendall Roy on stage, awkward and confident and strange. She wonders if Roman was the one who released the footage. “Maybe that would be too scarring for them. Don’t want to add psychiatric expenses on top of everything else.” He looks proud at her laugh, that he made it happen. She feels a squeeze in her chest.

“A Roman Roy Roast,” she says, and he raises an eyebrow. “And they can wear bikinis.” He smirks. “We’ll figure out better options. But tomorrow, you have hot tubbing and dinner with Eliza. And let her down easy. It’s not her fault she’s dull.”

Roman rolls his eyes, untangles himself from the chair. “When do we have a pillow fight in flimsy nighties? I feel like that’s a requirement of this show.”

It’s harder to hide the smiles that threaten to spill across her face. “And will you be wearing a nightie too?”

“Blue, with feathery fringe,” he answers without a thought.

“Sounds lovely. Flattering to your eyes. We’ll plan that for week four, and see what other new lows we can hit,” she says as as he stands, and he just grins. “Which women have the constitution to stick with Roman Roy.” She stands, too, shorter than him, but not by much. She wonders if he can see the white hairs just starting to thread through her blonde.

“You know how I’m, like, very amazing? Like so fucking fantastic, out of this world brilliant, a catch, I believe they might say? Like an eight foot long rainbow trout?”

It’s her turn to quirk an eyebrow. “Eight feet?” she echoes, and he just barrels past her.

“Like these women should want to take a photo with me on a dock, that’s the kind of catch I am. And you’re, like. You’re like the tackle box. You’ve got all these lures and like bait, or whatever, like stuff for any kind of water we’re in.”

“I think you’re getting dangerously close to _hot_ water,” she murmurs, sipping the champagne, bubbles on her tongue, dancing against her gums.

“What I’m saying is, like, we’re simpatico. Like a team. We can make that work, right? We can do this?” For all his bluster, he seems unsure, like he’s still not sure this is real, that anything will come from this television show. He would know, if he’d watched even one season, that Gerri always makes sure there’s a ring at the end.

“We’re a team,” she tells him, because, in some sense, it’s true. She’s his producer, it’s her job to make him look good, it’s his job to give her content she can use. “Mutually assured destruction, if nothing else.” He reaches for the glass once more, his mouth covering the imprint from her lips. “Time for bed, Roman,” she says when he’s finished, opening the door.

“Good night, tackle box,” he says, and it’s the easiest thing to say, “Good night, trout” right back.

-

Eliza goes home, and no one misses her. There’s another cocktail party before another rose ceremony. The alcohol budget rivals the travel budget, and the wine flows freely. Roman seems to have found some kind of equilibrium, no longer jumping at gentle touches to his arm, no longer seeking out the camera lens when someone says something he wants to laugh at. He’s found an ease, a goofy businessman, strange and aloof, somehow endearing. She thinks he says 'fuck' less when it's not just her.

He moves through the thinning crowd of women, maybe more comfortable with smaller numbers, and Gerri finds herself watching him, more than she normally tracks a lead on camera. She tries to reconcile the dark-eyed man in pajamas, coming to her room late at night - for what, she’s still not sure - with the man who stands at Tabitha’s side, making her laugh, her arm draped around his shoulder. There is envy in the eyes of the other women standing around, at the easy closeness Roman and Tabitha seem to have found.

And what’s worse is that Gerri feels a clenching in her stomach when he laughs, feels tightening in her ribcage when Tabitha whispers in his ear. If her teammate drafts another player, hooks another fish, where does that leave her?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm glad people are enjoying this! i regularly have no idea what i'm doing! what a time!

_Well I'm looking for a friend,  
_ _But I never thought I'd be staring right at you._

This Heart I Know (The Westward Tide)

Maybe it’s good that Gerri gets pulled into meetings with the network executives for the next few days, less time on set, less time catching Roman watching her whenever she’s around during filming, his eyes darting away when he realizes she’s spotted him. They’ve had to reshoot a few scenes because of it, but nobody asks what he’s looking at instead of the women in front of him. Normally she would be irritated by the wasted time, the expenditure of manpower, but she can’t help but feel gratified, flush with the power that draws him to her.

The suits are worried about ratings, a way to spin this season to draw in viewers. “He’s just a guy,” Frank Vernon says, and Karl Muller nods. “We’ve got nothing to promote.”

“You’re the ones who gave me this ‘guy,’” she retorts, air quotes by her ears. “He’s famous for the Forbes set and no one else. What do you want from us? Racist epithets? Sex scandal? And ending where he picks three women, shifts the plot to polygamy? Or maybe he doesn’t pick anyone at the end, blows the whole thing up. What do you want?” They shift uncomfortably under her stare. She didn’t become head producer from dancing around the male ego, the only woman with her own show in the whole network.

“Gerri, we’ve got to get the ads,” Karl says. “And Roman Roy can’t sell PineSol to Middle America.”

“We’ll make them go on a cleaning date, then. Bikinis and mops,” she snipes. “Or, and here’s a fucking brilliant brainwave, get Logan Roy to twist arms. He owns half of America, he can get the ad spots sold.” The two men share a glance. She feels defensive, the instinct to protect this unconventional lead. He’s trying his best, and these men are trying to torpedo him before he’s really gotten a chance to learn.

“You’ve just got to give us something,” Frank says. “We need something to run for the teasers. You know how to do it, Gerri. Get tears and jeers, number one rule of reality TV.” He’s trying to be gentle, kind, but she hears the warning behind his words, the threat that if she doesn’t make this happen, there will be consequences.

“Sex and pecs,” she says, though she’s not sure she’s ever seen Roman without his shirt on, doesn’t know what he has to offer the thirsty women of America. “Sure. Okay.” She purses her lips. “Anything else?” Head shakes, blank faces. Never ideas, just instructions, and she’s left to carry them out, to make the magic happen.

It’s a waste of her time, it’s frustrating, to make the trek to the city for a meeting that could’ve been a phone call, like being called to the principal’s office for a situation _they_ caused. She’s fuming by the time she gets back to the mansion. Filming done for the day, her staff self-sufficient without her wandering around, flicking out commands via headset. Karolina manages well enough in her absence, is good at seeing problems before they arise.

She’s got an email summing up the day, potential storylines, good interviews, bad interviews, a note that Roman seemed a little distracted. There’s the niggling thought in the back of her mind that it’s because she wasn’t there, because he knew she wasn’t watching him.

Shoes off, toes digging into her plush rug, she contemplates a shower, hot and steaming, pinking her skin and warming her face, washing off the meetings, the day, the two useless men telling her what to do. As she’s unbuttoning her blouse, her phone rings, an unknown number, New York area code. She cocks her head, then decides to answer it, because what more can this day throw at her, really?

“Hello?” She perches on the edge of her bed, nestling the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she pulls her earrings out one at a time.

“Oh, hey, Gerri. Didn’t think you’d answer.” It’s Roman. Roman’s smirking voice, and he’s got her cell phone number. She can’t quite decide how much to hate that.

“Then why did you call, Roman?” she asks, feeling very much not in the mood to stroke egos or pander to a manchild, or do anything that involves Roman Roy.

“I would’ve left a fucking voicemail, what kind of mouth-breathing, late night calling perv do you think I am?” She can imagine him in the poolhouse, walking back and forth, maybe a hand in his hair.

“I think you’re exactly that kind of perv,” she says. “What do you want?” Patience wearing thin, the dream of a shower evaporating.

“Just wanted to tell you that I had an incredible idea for a group date, and I know that you’re always tapping my genius for, like, fucking pearls of wisdom.” Gerri rubs at her forehead, thinks Roman is just like a permanent migraine that’s lodged in her head. Any other day, she’d have the time for this, any other day, she’d be willing to banter and hear him out. “The girls all have to pitch me on movies, in, like, short skirts. Real casting couch shit, you know? Whoever gives me the best idea gets, like, I don’t know, a dinner and champagne toast. We get strawberries and chocolate, normo fucking shit.”

“We’re not doing that, Roman. We’re not taking whatever idea you get into your little mind and doing a whole episode of television about it. That’s not how it works.”

“Oh yeah? Fuck you, that’s how it works! Technically, I _own_ this show. I own all of you! You have to keep me happy or who knows what chaos I’m going to spew!”

Something snaps, or breaks, or shakes loose. “Yes, Roman. Spew your chaos, your little ideas, spew them all over everything, cover everything in your spunk so we can bathe in your glory.”

“Maybe I _will_ ,” he parries, and she can imagine that goofy grin on his face, that smirk, he’s always having more fun than anyone else. “Maybe I will, Gerri. A fucking, spewing volcano of genius and you’ll be lucky to get even a squirt.”

“You’re just a boy, Roman, just a pathetic little boy who wants everyone to give him what he wants or you’ll throw a tantrum. Just a petulant little fuck-up whose dad had to bribe us to get his son on TV.”

She hears a gulp over the line, but Roman doesn’t say anything. Maybe there’s a sound of a belt buckle, of soft panting, his breath catching in his throat, and Gerri feels a curl of warmth, a pinprick of heat swirling around her abdomen. She almost laughs, scoffs, into the phone, would never have guessed that _this_ is the way her day is ending.

“You’re just a grotesque little _cockroach_ that can’t be stamped out, just a mewling little mole.” It’s everything she wants to say to every man, tripping out of her mouth so easily, and Roman _likes_ it. She wonders if he got Tabitha’s number too, if they’re breaking the rules, if he wants every woman he meets to berate him over the phone.

“You’re disgusting,” she says, his breaths coming faster, and she can make out a quiet “ _Yeah?”_ in response, prompting her, spurring her. “You’re filthy, what would those women say, the ones sleeping above my head? What would _America_ say if they knew? Knew that you were a rotting reptile in a business suit, using your cock as your head, dick snot on the carpet.” She hears a guttural sound, a grunt, feels that heat spread, right down to her core, right to the apex of her thighs. She stops herself from sliding her hand past her waistband, waits for his panting to subside.

“Grow up and put your dick back in your pants,” she says, when Roman is quiet. “Get some sleep.” Her voice is tender when she hangs up the phone.

The shower is as hot as she wants it to be, steam curling, covering the mirror, and when she stands under the spray, her hand goes between her thighs, pushing inside her. Power and pleasure and warmth and strength and Roman’s hard breaths in her ear. Her other hand braces against the slick tile, fingers digging against the grout. Water pounding around her, blood pounding in her ears, and she comes against her hand, wetness everywhere, hair slick against her scalp.

She goes to sleep feeling boneless and tired, but better. Better than she thought.

-

If her bad mood ebbed with the tide while she slept, it’s back in full force in the morning. There’s a text message waiting for her when she wakes up, Frank saying he and Karl will swing by the mansion sometime in the next few days, nothing more specific than that. Roman and Grace have their one-on-one date today, something about soaring to new heights, and they’ll be flying in a helicopter over the city, landing on a rooftop for a romantic lunch, complete with champagne.

She wonders if she’ll even see Roman before he goes. Wonders if she even wants to.

There’s a morning of interviews, dropping off the date card, the boring mundanity that keeps the train on the tracks. Tabitha seems bored with it all, Grace is all bubbly and excited for a day spent with Roman, the perfect wifey candidate, carefully curled hair, skillfully winged eyeliner. Only ten women left, and none seem inclined towards spats, no real rivalries. “Just keep asking leading questions,” Gerri tells her crew. “Someone will say something eventually.” She knows that some seasons are just more boring than others, no matter how many times the host says it’ll be _the most dramatic season ever_ , it so rarely is.

She just wants Roman’s season to be a success.

The way she would want any season to be a success. This one is no different, and she will say that to anyone who asks.

The women make dutiful noises of appreciation when Roman knocks on the front door of the mansion, clean shirt, pressed shorts, looks every inch a rich playboy, the kind of man who can lead a season.

He doesn’t look her way, not even one time that she can see. But she still feels as if she’s being watched, though every time she looks up, his dark eyes are focused elsewhere. She does notice a slight tinge to his cheeks, a blush, if she’s flattering herself.

She has Karolina do his morning one-on-one interview, takes to her office to shuffle paper, try to imagine scenarios that make this season the blockbuster Karl and Frank want it to be.

If avoiding Roman is the goal, though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone who asks, she fails spectacularly, almost running into him in the hallway as she’s heading out to talk to the camera operators for the rooftop date.

“Oh!” He surprises the noise out of her, not expecting him to be there, solidly, in front of her. Her hands flutter as she tries to decide where to put them, almost settling on his shoulders to steady herself, instead she clasps them behind her back, holds her fingers tightly, feels the heat spread across her face.

He cocks his head, a funny look on his face, his own hands twitching a little, like he’s stopping himself from reaching out too.

“Shit before shovel,” she says, after too long a moment spent looking at each other, dark eyes to blue ones, a moment that sets her brain fidgeting, and she nods him forward, ahead of her. His smirk is just visible as he turns and walks down the hallway.

She follows, distracts herself with her phone, sending a message to Karolina, to Bill, googling “helicopter accidents,” anything that comes to mind. “Have fun today,” she calls after Roman, and he tosses a grin, evil and sharp, over his shoulder, gives her a thumbs up.

-

The date doesn’t go well. Roman gets mad about something - Gerri isn’t even sure yet what - and yells, and Grace quits, doesn’t even get back in the car to drive her to the mansion to get her suitcase. Gerri hears about it through Bill, hears some of the crew gossip, just a little impotent rage and spilled champagne.

“Well, there’s our scandal,” she mutters, flicks through her phone. The last time they had a villain bachelor, they did get good ratings. And plenty of women contestants to mine through for further content in later seasons. She wonders if this is what Logan Roy had in mind when he sent her his son and told her to find Roman a wife.

Producers are sent scurrying for reaction interviews and Gerri has to make sure Grace has her lodging at the hotel accounted for, an earlier arrival than anticipated. Nothing that’s frantic, but it’s more of a hubbub than this season has produced so far.

When the gentle furor subsides, Gerri heads to the pool house, knows Roman will be cooped up there. She doesn’t even knock on the door, lets herself in, sees the way his head snaps up as her feet sound against the parquet floor in the entryway.

He’s all tucked up in a chair, knees up, arms wrapped around his legs, his feet bare, the once-pressed shirt from this morning now slightly wrinkled. She wishes she’d brought wine. Or whiskey. Or something to offer this sad little boy, taking a break from pretending to be a man.

“We have a problem,” she says, tapping her fingers against the doorframe, and he just wriggles his nose a little, scrunches his face. “Not about Grace. Who fucking cares about Grace? She’ll get a hundred thousand instagram followers and lip fillers, and she’ll be fine. No, it’s a different problem.” She moves through the room, clothes scattered, a little more chaotic mess than the last time she stopped by. “It’s the network. They think you’re boring. So either we double down on this angry shit you pulled today and make you a monster for television, or you and I have to figure something else out.”

“So this is what? A brainstorming session? Trout and Tackle Box saving the day?” His feet slide off the chair, hit the floor, she follows their path with her eyes. The sparse dark hair on his toes looks stark against his pale skin. Gerri flicks her gaze back up to his. “Also I’m not fucking boring.” Roman points a finger, didactic and strong and Gerri smiles, holds up her hands in mock surrender.

“I didn’t say you were boring, it was Frank and Karl at the network.”

“Oh, those two fuckfaces, like they’re, like, Steve Irwin or whatever the fuck.” Roman flicks his hand.

“Steve Irwin is your barometer for being interesting?” Gerri quirks an eyebrow, another layer uncovered, another secret exposed. Another puzzle piece sliding into place.

“The dude fucking wrestled crocodiles. A stingray _pierced his chest_. Who else is that objectively, like, whatever?” Roman’s standing now, hands shoved in his pockets, back towards Gerri. When he turns back around, he’s got a glint in his eye. “We need to change the vibe, fix this feeling. You know what we have to do?”

Gerri’s almost afraid to ask, just tilts her head instead, touches her hand to the bridge of her glasses, pushing them back slightly.

“Take our shirts off.” He seems so absolutely confident in his suggestion. “We’ve got to disrupt, like, this whole fucking thing. Break shit up, go against the grain.” His fingers are at his buttons, easily sliding them through the holes, his bare chest pale and smooth, just visible.

“I’m not doing that,” Gerri says, her lips twitching because this is the same man who panted in her ear last night, who begged to be insulted. She can still hear his stuttered breathing, can still feel the roiling wave of arousal in her belly. But his shirt slides off his shoulders, and she can see that he must do _something_ in the gym. He’s no Mr. Universe, but there are defined pectorals and the curve of a bicep. Sex and pecs could be feasible.

“How about this - how ‘bout this. You and I, we get fucking _married,_ we run away together in the middle of the night, and then they have their shocker, their Twitter moment.” He spreads his arms wide, waiting for approval, a labrador wanting a pat on the head.

“We get married?” she echoes wryly.

“I don’t know, whatever. We can just run away. Fuck, like you jump, I jump, Jack. That shit.” She can’t tell if he’s serious, can’t tell what goes on in that mind, dark eyes hiding depths, most of which are inscrutable, some of which seem verging on human intelligence.

“We’re not on the Titanic,” Gerri says, and she thinks Roman looks a little disappointed. “What about Tabitha?” She can’t stop herself from asking, hates herself a little for saying the words.

He seems to deflate a little. “Tabitha? Is she jumping with us? Some kind of kinky little three-way? You dirty little fox!” The glint, the humor, the charm, it all perks him back up. Gerri waits out his silence, hands on her hips, Roman circling her like a deranged shark.

“You think she should be the pick? My pick?” His voice sounds small again, unsure. “She’s the ending?” There’s disbelief, and Gerri knows it’s his insecurity that’s making her feel smug, important. There was no hesitation in their phone call. It’s not a helpful emotion, but it’s there all the same.

“She’s _an_ ending,” Gerri hedges. “We just need something to sell the network. A tall leggy blonde has a certain cache.” The work, the show, it comes up as a barrier between them, maybe protecting them both. Distracting them both. “We’ve got your hissy fit with Grace, tears and rejection and that’s not nothing.”

“She kept talking about that fucking turkey movie, Gerri,” he says, a whiny note to his voice. “I’m more than one movie I didn’t want to make.” Petulant but trying to be bigger than the thing holding him down.

“So we’ll figure this out, Roman,” she says. “There’s a way forward, and we’ll find it. With our shirts on, probably.” She bends down and hands him his discarded clothing. And before she can stop herself, she leans in and kisses his cheek, smells the scent of his cologne as her mouth presses against his skin.

“We’ll figure this out,” she says again, reaching to pat his shoulder, pausing right before she makes contact, his skin still bare, and it just feels too much, her hand hovering for a moment before she withdraws. “Get ready for the cocktail party, and we’ll talk later.”

When she leaves, he’s still staring after her, shirt in hand, eyes dark, face inscrutable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas, happy holidays, wanted to get this up before i get pulled into family bonding time for the day. as always, who ever even knows what's happening, and if you've been trying to keep track of the female contestant names, i'm here to tell you that it's a pointless endeavor. :)
> 
> thanks to everyone who reads and comments and enjoys. i appreciate you all!

_I'm wrapped in your fingers and tied up in your hair  
_ _If time took a break for tonight I wouldn't care  
_ _'Cause I wouldn't change a thing_  
I Wouldn’t Change a Thing (Westerlight)

Roman starts standing close to her. Maybe too close. Her elbow brushes against his chest, his hand has grazed against her breasts more than once as he leans to point something out on her iPad. She can see his eyelashes flick against his cheeks, and the slight pink tinge that always seems to creep across his skin when they’re standing next to each other now.

She never moves away.

There’s the flutter of being wanted, of being desired, the feeling of whatever is bubbling up between them becoming almost tangible to Gerri. Sometimes her shirts smell of him when she undresses at night.

They make it through rose ceremonies and cocktail parties and increasingly intimate dates. There’s one where Becky B. rubs oil on his back, where they kiss against the wall of a sauna. He goes sky-diving with Tabitha, she sticks her tongue down his throat before they jump out of the plane. Jessica O. tells him about her divorced parents and her unhappy childhood, and Roman touches her knee, holds her hand. Gerri watches it all on screen from the production office, distant and cool; none of it matters, in the end.

Most of the couples from the show don’t last past their first year, shiny rings returned, baleful Instagram captions that try to reassure everyone that they’re still friends. Whoever Roman picks may not ever be a wife. He might not ever be a husband, no matter what his father wants.

She had a husband once and didn’t like it, never felt like a successful wife, itched against the confines that never fit right, a wool sweater she wanted to give away. Baird was nothing like Roman, dissimilar enough that comparisons don’t even really work, don’t even really matter. She never thought about Baird alone in bed, hand between her legs, pushing inside, fingers fisted in the sheets.

It’s Roman in her thoughts, his name that she bites back, face pressed against her pillow as she feels a mixture of shame and doubt whirling around with desire and want. And in the morning, she strips her sheets and washes the sweat off them, comes back to a freshly made bed in the evening, promises to not repeat past mistakes.

Promises that she breaks.

A part of her feels ridiculous, an old woman haring after a man young enough to be her son. She doesn’t even know how they got to this point. How she got to this point. How the lead of her television show turned into an inextricable part of her life, all the while she’s trying to marry him off to some empty-headed bimbo, also young enough to be her progeny.

And a part of her feels like she’s found her right hand, the person who quirks a smile at her wry humor, the person who can make her laugh, really laugh, after years of only doing so politely. He texts her at odd hours, something ridiculous he remembers from a date ( _Becky H says she has a fear of ketchup. Do we even know her last name? What happens if she’s the only Becky left?_ ) or movie ideas that come into his head ( _Hired assassin gets mistaken for a dating service_ ) and she never knows what’s coming through when her phone vibrates. Sometimes she yells at him, tells him he’s an embarrassment, disgusting, wretched. And sometimes they just talk. She follows his lead because she hasn’t had anything unexpected in her life for so long, everything scripted from the show she runs to the world around her. No surprises.

Except for Roman Roy. And for some reason, she trusts him not to lead her astray. No more astray than she’s already brought him.

When he knocks on her door, it’s late. There are five women sleeping in their rooms upstairs, the rest of the crew settled in their beds, in their trailers, in their homes. It’s quiet, feels like they’re the only two awake. The only two alive.

His pretext for being there rings false, wanting to come up with suggestions for hometown dates with the women, ideas for what to do with his fucking family when the final two are narrowed down. “Take everyone out for a nice guillotining in Times Square? Throw bread at the poors?” His shoulders are hunched and he’s sitting so close. Too close.

When he turns to look at her, she sees his soft dark eyes, sees something flicker in them, something he’s not trying to hide, not now. His hand twitches, moves, hovers next to her face, and then his long fingers tuck her hair behind her ear, rest against her cheek.

There’s a molasses pour of time when she could stop this, a drawn out, stretched thin second where she sees what will happen, where before she might have pulled away, but now she just waits, a spider in her web, a lioness with her prey. But with an offering that presented himself willingly before her, she didn’t have to lure him in. She didn’t have to pull.

He kisses her and he tastes of gin and nerves, like he’s still looking for bravery somewhere and couldn’t find it in the bottom of the bottle. His tongue flicks against her lips and she opens her mouth. He threads his fingers in her hair and holds her close, one of her hands goes to his elbow, the other to his waist, feeling for his belt, the band of his trousers.

She nips at his lower lip, her teeth just dragging at the flesh and he whimpers, his fingers curling, digging into her, and she can feel his erection against her, warm through his pants. He fumbles at the hem of her t-shirt, her legs already bare. She rips a few buttons to get his shirt off, to even the score, hears them skitter across the floor, knows he won’t be able to leave wearing this shirt and keep his dignity.

He bites back, at her neck, at the tendon there, teeth scraping and rough and she doesn’t want him to know how much she likes it, though she can feel the warmth pooling at her thighs, his hands against the bare skin below the shirt he hasn’t managed to pull off over her head. She feels the hair on her arms stand on end, feels a spike of pleasure down her spine. She lets Roman push her back against the mattress, lets him ride above her, pushing his trousers down his narrow hips, seeing him spring free, hard, erect, against his boxers.

Her hand cups his balls as his fingers slide against her underwear, and he smirks, can feel how wet she is already. She can’t even hide it, doesn’t think she wants to. Doesn’t think she needs to.

When her shirt finally comes off, his hands greedily go to her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples, pinching against his forefingers. Her head rolls back, she thinks they both like a little torture with their tango. When his mouth, wet and warm, wraps around the peak of her breast, she can’t stop the hum at the back of her throat, the satisfaction that can’t be held back. He looks smug when she props herself up on her elbows, looks him in the eye.

“Would you like a gold star?” she asks, “A trophy just for showing up?” She flicks his cock to emphasize her point, and his eyes get even darker, a little wilder. He bends back to her breasts, his teeth and tongue nibbling and teasing one while his fingers pinch and plump the other. When he pulls away, his saliva leaves her chest cold in the air conditioning, goosebumps and shivers, from Roman, from the chill, and then he dives in for seconds, switching his ministrations, playing fair to both sides of her torso.

When he’s had his fill of her breasts, he licks his way down her stomach, holding her hips in his hands, and she wonders what he thinks of her curves, how she’s _zaftig_ , as Baird’s uncle called her once, the word echoing in her head. But his eyes are gleaming, his mouth is smiling, and he looks almost proud. Proud to be here with her, maybe, proud to have her in such a state. He licks into her, and it’s all she can do to bite back his name, a growled “Rooooo” coming out instead, and he looks proud at that too.

He repeats the same pattern from her breast against her clit, his tongue and teeth bringing her hips up, making her writhe, and she never thought of herself as someone who could be brought to the brink so easily. She never thought of Roman as a man who could do this without her help. Her hand fists in his hair, holding him in place, holding him close, his breath hot against her thigh. She comes, a rolling wave, a solar eclipse, a rocket exploding. And he just looks up at her with those dark eyes, supplicating, warm.

It’s easy to reverse their positions, to push him to his back, for him to kick off his damp boxers, his feet still in socks, though it doesn’t matter, doesn’t faze Gerri.

She holds him firmly in her hand, the other bracing on the mattress next to his head, and she lowers herself onto him, wet and slick and she feels him, deep and solid. Rocking her hips, gently undulating, she waits for him to find the rhythm she’s set, to push against her, his fingers gripping against her waist and she thinks she’ll have bruises there in the morning.

Her bare breasts press against his skin as she leans down, nosing Roman’s chin, meeting his mouth with hers, and she can taste her tanginess on his tongue. Her hands stay framing his face as she moves, keeping the pace for them both and he doesn’t look away, dark eyes meeting blue, the whole world rewritten in their stare.

The rhythm falters, his hands trying to find purchase in her hair, the sheets, the headboard. He comes, a shout buried in her neck, pressed against her hair, teeth scraping skin, another bruise she’ll have to hide with make-up or scarves or high-collared shirts. He came and she didn’t even have to yell at him. He came, and he fits beside her on the bed so easily, eyes closed, mouth soft.

As she falls asleep, all she can think is that this might’ve been a mistake. But she doesn’t know if she’ll regret it.

She wakes up and thinks she might’ve dreamt it, a vivid escape, but there’s soreness between her legs, an indent from Roman’s head on the pillow, and a message from Frank on her phone saying he and Karl are coming today.

-

There’s a flurry of activity, a higher tension, with the suits coming to set. Better food from craft services, and Gerri starts filling a plate when Roman sidles up alongside her, Frank and Karl in tow.

She doesn’t know what he says when she’s not around, has no idea of the shit he’s spun into gold, but Frank is smiling and Karl is shoveling scrambled eggs onto a plate, so whatever he’s sold them is worth something. A priceless piece of art coming to light at the Antiques Roadshow.

“Good day yesterday?” Frank asks, looking across the table at Gerri, filling up his own plate, a pastry, some bacon, carefully picking out the crispiest pieces.

“Getting ready for hometown visits. Always drama to uncover there,” she says, careful, watchful.

“And the evening went smoothly? No drama at the cocktail party?” He seems politely disinterested, keeping the conversation light, but Gerri expects the full interrogation later, when Roman isn’t there, behind closed doors with no listening ears.

“Nope, but afterwards Gerri _did_ fuck me into oblivion, and I can’t walk straight. My cum-stained boxers are probably still on her floor,” Roman says, and Gerri has to carefully school her features, keeps her face passive. Tabitha just smiles politely, Becky H. looks like she doesn't know what to think, and Karl and Frank are looking anywhere but at Gerri, Frank adjusting his shirt collar a little.

“What a repulsive thought,” she says. “Enough to put me off the lunch buffet.” She knows he’s testing limits, only saying it because he knows no one will believe it. He always manages to ride the line of insulting and endearing - his desire to boast nestling right alongside his absolute fuckery.

She doesn’t even look at Roman as she walks to her office, Frank following, Karl lagging, eyeing the five contestants still standing. Roman gets pulled away by producers, morning interviews he’s not doing with her, and maybe it’s a good thing. She still feels the bottom dropping in the pit of her stomach, doesn’t miss the way he winks at Tabitha as he walks into the interview room.

“So, what’s the deal, Gerri? Where’s our angle?” Karl balances his plate on the edge of her desk, dangerously, perilously, and she can envision it tipping, falling. It’s always her job to see endpoints, to see possible outcomes, and so she sees them everywhere.

“We thought about murder, pushing someone off a balcony, but that seemed a little dark,” Gerri says, settling herself in chair, hands splaying on the desk, ankles crossed under her desk. Her voice stays even, bland, and Karl looks like he’s not sure if she’s joking. Maybe that’s something she and Roman have in common. “It’s a regular season. We have those. No one will run screaming at the sight of a ring, no one will jump over fences, it’s just comforting, low-stakes television. The kind that sells ads and doesn’t make anyone upset.”

“If no one’s upset, no one’s talking about it,” Frank offers, steepling his fingers, leaning back in the chair across from Gerri.

“Let’s kill Karl on tomorrow’s episode then. A willing sacrifice in the name of ratings.” Karl chokes on a slice of toast, and neither Gerri nor Frank moves to slap his back, to make sure he has an airway. When his coughing slows, face still red, Gerri crosses her arms. “Or we just let the season fade away. Roman gets his rehabilitated image as something slightly better than a wart on a toad, and Logan gets his good press. It doesn’t have to splash, it just has to float.”

Sometimes they don’t know the hook for the season until it’s over, until all the decisions have been made and they can edit footage to make the villains, make the heroes, make the drama. Either it’s more work while they film or it’s more work after, and every season is different.

Things feel tense for the rest of the day, Frank and Karl hovering around, everyone acting just slightly off, more aware of everything, than they did the previous day. There’s Becky H. (the final Becky) and Tabitha and Shelby and Jessica and Winifred, and they all give speeches like they’re trying to win homecoming queen, eyeing the men in suits that weren’t there before, some casting couch bullshit that Gerri doesn’t want on her set.

It’s the last cocktail party before the hometown visits, the last rose ceremony, Tabitha the only person who already has a rose, tall and confident and sleek, her blonde hair curled and sprayed, the rose looking small in her hands, all the other women eyeing it jealously, nervously.

Frank pulls Roman aside, a hand on his shoulder, and Gerri desperately wishes for a boom mike or superpowered hearing, to know what’s being said. She drifts towards them, nonchalant, checking in with PAs and interns, a hand to a shoulder here, a quiet whisper there. As she nears Frank, all she catches is, “Make the right choice, kiddo,” followed by a fatherly pat to Roman’s shoulder. Roman practically leaps away when he sees Gerri, excuses himself, finds a glass of champagne, lets Jessica pull him aside for a staged chat about their strained relationships with their fathers. Frank smiles tightly at Gerri, says he and Karl have to be getting a move on, back to the city. They’ve got a driver - they’ve both been drinking too much scotch.

“We always get ratings, Frank,” she says, stern, eyes firm. “You just have to trust the process, even with an old dinosaur like Logan Roy breathing down your neck.” He only nods, and Gerri doesn’t know if that’s good or bad, what anything means at all.

Roman sends home Shelby, walks her out to the limo and hugs her goodbye. He looks natural, human, and it’s so different from the man who walked into the mansion all those weeks ago. Gerri pulls him for a talking head, the door shutting behind them, camera rolling, a steadfast eye staring them both down.

“Are you excited to meet the parents next week?” she asks and tries to ignore the pull that she feels, something in her gut responding to something in Roman’s eyes.

“I’ve never even been to - where is Winnie from? Omaha? Can’t wait to see all that fucking corn, man.” Gerri waits a beat, knows he’ll give her the soundbite eventually, knows he’s teasing her, holding the little power he has over her, doesn’t mind it so much. “I’m excited to see where these women come from,” he amends, “and I just hope to god there’s a corn maze in Omaha we can walk through.” He’s charming, he’ll charm America. They’ll be drawn in without realizing it.

“And New York with Tabitha - do you run in any of the same circles?” Roman always seems to smirk when Gerri brings up Tabitha, like he knows there’s a tinge of jealousy there. Again, finding the power he does have, using it where he can.

“Is this where you want me to talk about my, like, druggie coked up past and how maybe Tabs and I fucked at a party once?” Gerri doesn’t know if it’s true, but it doesn’t feel like a lie. It explains the ease of their physicality, how Tabitha can so casually drape an arm around his shoulder, the way they found humor in posing for fake wedding photos on that fucked up date, Roman’s back to Tabitha’s front, dramatic, ridiculous, comical.

When they finish, when she’s pulled out enough usable content from him that they can both go to bed, Roman catches her in the hallway - the hallway with no cameras and no people, no prying eyes, and presses Gerri against the wall, flashing eyes, hungry mouth, kisses her like he’s been thinking about it all day. HIs hands curl against her shoulders, hers frame his face. She lets him kiss her until she’s had her fill and then she pushes him away.

“How does this end, Roman?” she asks, because she doesn’t know. This thing between them, this partnership - is it more than that? Is it just a convenient fuck while they’re both stuck in this mansion?

Roman’s eyes go serious, his shoulders hunch as he leans against the wall opposite Gerri, hands stuffed in pockets, like a kid called in to see the principal. “There’s like the whole bullshit white wedding nonsense. Jessica and I get married on some fucked up special in six months and I stick her with my dick until she’s preggo. Or,” he pauses, somehow contracts his body even further, like he’s scared to say this aloud, “I pick Tabitha, but it’s all fucking fake, and she gets to keep the ring, and you and I, we, I don’t know, fuck off into the sunset. Happily ever fucking after. They’ll write fairy tales about us. Whatever.” He shrugs.

“The princess and the pea-brain?” Gerri watches his face, the hope mixed with fear that twists his features.

“More like Beauty and the fucking Beast, don’t you think?” he asks. “But, like. Just. It doesn’t have to end when the show does.” His eyes dart to the end of the hallway, a camera operator walking past, doesn’t even look their way, but it feels like they’re caught in some tryst, some clandestine act. Gerri thinks about nodding towards her door, getting him to follow her with just a look, but she thinks they’ll just end up in bed again, a pulsing feeling between her thighs telling her that’s true.

“Why Tabitha?” Gerri asks, because she can’t help herself.

“Because her life won’t be over when I tell her we’ll never get married,” Roman says softly, and it’s surprisingly sweet, the tender underbelly that Roman rarely exposes. “Also she says I’m always eye-fucking you. Oh, you know what? Maybe, like, I don’t know, the three of us can find some, uh, arrangement, you know?” He waggles his eyebrows and Gerri snorts. “A _menage_ _à_ Roman, that whole thing.”

“I’m not going to fuck your girlfriend, Roman,” Gerri says, and starts to walk away from him, his hand reaching out to catch hers, finger touching the base of her wrist where her skin is soft and fragile.

“You could be my girlfriend,” he says earnestly. “Something to think about.” And then he replaces his fingers with his lips, a kiss right below her watchband, her wrist tingling even after he disappears around the corner.


	5. Chapter 5

_Oh, don't leave me here alone  
_ _Don't tell me that we've grown  
_ _For having loved a little while  
_ _Oh, I don't wanna be alone_  
_I wanna find a home  
_ _And I wanna share it with you_

Hello My Old Heart (The Oh Hellos)

Gerri can’t sleep. She stares at the ceiling of her bedroom, wishing for tiles or cracks or something to count. She walks the quiet hallways and spins in her swivel chair. The night feels endless, stretching ahead of her, minutes ticking by, feeling like hours. She unplugs the alarm clock, puts her phone upside down, but it does nothing to stop the slow, inexorable march of time, does nothing to make the pace any faster.

There’s a week of downtime, women going back to their hometowns, time with their families. Just Roman, isolated from society in the pool house, and a skeleton crew around the mansion. And Gerri.

It would be easy to walk across the backyard, to knock on Roman’s door. He’s probably watching tv or scrolling on the phone he pretends he doesn’t have. She’s found three Twitter accounts he started under aliases just in the last six weeks, can’t imagine what it’s like to manage him full-time, doesn’t envy the people at Waystar.

From what she’s gathered, by talking to him, from reading articles, listening to his conversations with the women, most people seem to think he’s some kind of idiot, and he plays the fool to get what he wants. The court jester to his father’s King Lear. But Shakespeare usually made the fool the smartest of them all.

It feels weak, simpering, ridiculous, any number of emotions that cause her stomach to tighten, to think of going to Roman, instead of smoking him out, making him come to her. What if he’s had regrets, what if he never meant any of the things he said, and she’s just the sad old lady who believed him.

She touches her wrist, where his lips left a faint kiss, hears his words ( _you could be my girlfriend_ ) echo in her mind. There’s the unanswered question, the unknowable future, and she has only a little time to decide before Roman makes whatever decision he’s going to make. He’s been the pawn so many times that he’s made his way across the chessboard and now he’s in control.

When she knocks on his door, she feels the jangling of her nerves, a feeling so foreign to her she thinks the last time she felt this way was asking James Tetch to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance in high school. Men flock to her, the aloof attitude, the expensive clothes, the aromatic perfume. She has the qualities that men think they want, until they get to know her. But the crux of this all is that she thinks Roman might really know her. And he might want her anyway.

He answers quickly, like he’s been waiting, like he was about to leave the pool house himself, like maybe he was getting up the nerve to walk to her room, soft slippers on his feet, loose pajamas settled low on his waist. His smile is more of a smirk, like he’s won something, and it’s almost enough to make Gerri turn around, to walk away. But his eyes are soft and dark and there’s a warmth that gives her pause. Maybe not so foolish, to believe in him, in this.

“Lonely up there in the big house?” he asks, “No pillow fights with the girls to keep things spicy?” His eyebrows waggle and she knows he’s just angling for a laugh, a snort, an eyebrow raise of her own.

“Sadly all the silk teddies got packed away with their luggage, and I didn’t like the idea of a naked pillow fight with the PAs. Not in the mood to deal with sexual harassment claims, with the season almost over.” She moves past Roman, her shoulder brushing against his chest, and he doesn’t move away. He smells clean, soap and that masculine shampoo scent, not a whiff of cologne.

“What about a naked pillow fight with the lead of your television show?” So hopeful, so youthful, an eager puppy at her heels. It fills her up, like a crystalline bubble, floating along her spine, and she can’t help but feel that someday, it will pop. But for now, she will let the strange buoyant feeling stay, will keep all her pins and barbs tucked safely away.

There’s a dance, an awkward two-step, because she’s not exactly sure why she’s here and he doesn’t know why she came, and the easiest answer is sex, but it’s not the right answer, really, so there’s nothing to be done except stare at each other while they both decide what’s happening. When she sits on his couch, he sits too close, not much room to maneuver, her nose almost hitting his cheek when she turns her face. He fidgets a little, hunched shoulders like a rabbit that might jump away, and her hand comes to rest on his thigh, presses against the flannel pants, the heat of his skin tangible and as warm as his eyes. Her fingernails dig, a squeeze, and he squirms, just a little.

“Just came over for a late night fucking?” Roman asks, his tone light, but a little off, and maybe he’s been just as nervous about the reality of whatever is happening. “Wham bam thank you, Kellman?” He exhales against her cheek.

“Pool boy in the pool house,” she murmurs, a hand in his hair, pushing it back from his face, awkward elbows. And then her mouth presses to his cheek, his chin, the stubble rough against her lips, and when she kisses him, he’s ready for her, wet and hot, his tongue, his lips full of the foreign taste of someone else’s mouth, of Roman’s mouth, and she relishes it, lets him in, her thumb still against his cheek, his body shifted, one knee up on the sofa between them, the hard kneecap against her hip, the slight discomfort grounding her as she very nearly loses herself in the kiss, in the feeling of him, of this.

If he wanted to say anything else, had any other questions, they’re lost to the ether, lost to the chambers of his mind she has yet to explore. They move together, still finding the rhythm they can build between them, still fumbling for whether to go right or left or just barrel straight forward, but eventually Gerri is straddling him, knees in the couch cushions, hands bracketing his head and she can look down into his eyes, those warm, warm eyes, and he doesn’t look away.

She thinks none of the women have met this version of Roman. They think he’s a playboy, blustering member of New York’s party scene. But there’s a fragility to him, a desperation to please, hidden behind all the jokes and sarcasm. And for some unknown reason, he’s pulled aside the curtain for her. When she brushes his hair back this time, she lingers, fingers carding through the strands. It feels like he washed it earlier in the day, and she wonders if he showered with her in mind. With this in mind.

They look at each other for a second, two, three, a minute, and hour, she doesn’t know. Time already doesn’t mean anything on this night that’s lasted so long, what’s a few more lost moments between friends. He arches up to kiss her, pushes his fingers into the bun she never took down, finding the elastic, the pins, flicking them out with a practiced touch, her curls falling, a curtain around them, a world with spun gold walls, made just for them.

His hands move to her waist, up her sides, his light touches making her laugh, chuckle, huff out breath, an involuntary smile swallowed up by his lips, and he’s smiling too. She’s not wearing a bra, and his hands dance back down again, their upward path repeated underneath underneath her shirt, against her bare skin, and this time she doesn’t laugh.

Her breasts fit in his hands, his long fingers pushing and pulling and tugging and molding and it’s not the most erotic sensation she’s ever felt, but his eagerness to please, to figure out, to discover, makes up for any ineptitude. She feels desired, and she pulls off her shirt, goosebumps erupting across her skin at the coolness, the air conditioner humming in the window. Roman’s lips travel along her arm, down the left and up the right, following the trail of goosebumps, leaving a trail behind.

“Fuck,” he says between her breasts, nosing against her collarbone.

“Fuck,” he says at her stomach, lips circling her belly button.

“Fuck,” he says, mouthing against her underpants, where she’s already wet, already waiting.

He eats her out on the couch, her pants in a pile on the floor, naked as a jaybird and he’s fully clothed, and she doesn’t even care. Her hand tangles in his hair, holding him, guiding him, her head tilting over the armrest, trying to keep her hips from bucking too wildly, because _christ_ , he’s good at this. Thumb and tongue working in tandem, no stone unturned, and it feels sinfully good.

She’s panting on the couch, the hopeful bubble expanding in her chest, pushing out, and she can’t feel anything but the aftershocks of pleasure. Distantly aware of Roman standing, pushing her sweaty hair off her forehead, the tap running in the bathroom. He hands her a glass of water that she sits up to drink, crosses her legs without thinking, like she’s in a business meeting and hasn’t just orgasmed in a pool house on the set of her show.

He tastes like toothpaste when she kisses him again, bending over her until she stands up too, and she likes how they’re close in height, how neither of them has to stretch or strain. His hands go to her ass, gripping, urging, helping and hindering their path to his bed all at once. She pushes his pants down, the drawstring already loose, and he comes free, his erection hard already. Or maybe it’s been hard this whole time, and he’s been patient. Another slide in the Roman Roy PowerPoint clicking into place.

She thinks of the folder on Roman she was handed all those weeks ago, when they started casting, before there was any film in the cameras. How thin it feels compared to what she knows now. Rare for there to be more to anyone than what she expects. How unusual to be surprised.

“I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long,” she says, sliding her hand along his length, thumb circling the tip, spreading the wetness around.

“Marathon, not a fucking sprint,” he grinds out, and she can tell he’s been holding it in, holding himself back, making himself wait for this, for her, for them. She lays back on the bed, lets him straddle her, his dick bobbling between them. He pulls at one of her curls, watches it spring back into place, like he’s content just to sit like this, like the press of skin to skin is enough. His hand rests against her cheek, slides against her neck, and she can feel how big his palms are, how his fingers can span across her tendons. And how he still can feel so delicate.

When he thrusts into her, thighs spread for him, she feels full, sated, each pump sliding home in a way she hasn’t felt in years. They’re wet, sticky, sweaty, but she likes the press of him, the feel of him, nips at the fleshy part at the base of his thumb, and he buries his face against her neck. She thinks he’s going to leave a mark there, she thinks she’s got a week before she has to cover it up.

He curls around her back, arms around her waist, his flaccid dick nestling just at her ass, a strangely comforting feeling, his chin tucked against her shoulder. Without thought, without concern, without anything at all, Gerri falls asleep, nestled against Roman Roy, the crown prince of American media, the upcoming bachelor, the softly snoring man.

-

It’s disorienting when she wakes up, naked and warm, a weight at her hips, Roman’s arm still possessively wrapped around her. Even stranger, her hand found his in the night, their fingers tangled together. She never held Baird’s hand while they slept, and they had separate bedrooms for half of their marriage. Her hair is a bird’s nest, she can feel the tangles without even touching them. She feels and hears the groan from the man behind her, knows there’s no chance of escape now. Isn’t even sure that’s what she wants anyway.

“Fuck,” he says, and she pulls her hand away, pulls her body away. “Not you,” he amends. “I just have like ten fucking missed calls from my dipshit brother.”

“You’re not supposed to have a phone,” she says, sitting up, pulling the sheet with her, though Roman stares until her breasts are covered. It’s one thing to be naked at night, when the lights are low and there’s just moonlight and lust. It’s another for the morning sun to highlight her age and the wrinkles left behind from sheets and blankets, her mascara smudged, any pretense long gone.

“And you’re not supposed to sleep with the bachelor,” he says, but he sounds distracted, like he doesn’t mean to wound, though it feels like an accusation, a glancing blow. “Fuck, Kendall’s just, like, fucking _high_. I thought Dad had _died_ and this motherfucker just wanted to know if I had a hook-up to get tooted.”

Roman doesn’t talk about his family that much, Gerri’s noticed. It’s politeness and partylines but she’s learned how to hear what he doesn’t say, knows he’s the worrier among his siblings, the accidental peacemaker, smoothing things over with jokes and witticisms. “And do you?” she asks, not because she has any desire for cocaine but just because she wants to know.

“Not for like a few years. At some point you just get a secretary to do that shit for you. If you’re not a total fucking mess, like Kendall is, apparently. Like, did he fire Jess?” He’s scrolling through his phone that is absolutely against the rules and doesn’t look up as she starts to walk around the pool house, looking for her clothes. She would be embarrassed about the dispersion of her clothing were it not for the reminder of the previous night’s pleasure between her thighs, the ache, the feeling of being stretched for another person and not minding.

If anyone sees her as she walks back to her room, they’ll know. They’ll know she was somewhere and did something, and she doesn’t know what the lie will be, didn’t think that far ahead because she never meant to fall asleep.

“Hey,” Roman says, when she’s standing in the living room, looking for her slippers, can’t remember when she kicked them off. “Is this - like - are you okay?” There’s that worry directed at her now, and she doesn’t have an answer.

“Yes,” is what she says, but what she means is that she wants to know where he stands, wants to know what he thinks, wants to see his cards before she tells him what’s in her hand. Before she makes her bet. “We have to get some interview footage of you at some point today, and they’ll probably want to film some promo footage. You holding a rose, whatever,” she says, bending to look underneath the couch, trying to be carefully distant, cautiously professional.

“You’re thinking about the show?” Roman asks, and he sounds helpless and small. “Is that - fuck, is that it?” She doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t know how and it’s this abyss between them.

“Roman….” Trails off because the words aren’t coming out. Tries again. “Roman, I’m twenty-five years older than you,” she says, holds it in front of her like it’s a reason. “You might not like me when the choice is made.” She thinks that might be how Baird felt, the moment after he slipped the ring on her finger. The golden shine fell away the moment it was final, and he was just left with plain old brass.

“Are you breaking up with me because you’re old? Maybe I’m trying to be a fucking gold digger and you’re ruining it,” he says, leaning against the back of the couch, like he’s trying to decide if he should hop over it, still naked, pale skin in the morning light. “I like you more than any other person I’ve met on this whole fucking planet that’s going to explode in ten years or whatever. Why can’t that be enough?”

“This blows things up, Roman. More than just a few missing thumbs. It _changes_ things.” She should’ve said this last night, should’ve said it before she fell asleep, should’ve said it any number of times, but she’s saying it now, and she can’t hide from the confusion in his eyes.

“When you’re ass-deep in money, you don’t really have to deal with change. You pay people to keep things the same,” he says. “You get your show, the network gets their big fucking exciting ending, no one sees it coming, and then we do that princess and the pea brain shit you were talking about. Tackle box and trout. Whatever.”

She doesn’t say anything, silence easier than hope, and he just sighs, pushes back from the couch and turns away, back to the bedroom, to his bathroom, to wherever he goes when he’s alone, to scroll through his phone and make another twitter account to mock the show anonymously, whatever. It feels bleak and hopeless to watch him walk away, even if it’s only a few steps. It feels like a mile, like a state border, like an ocean.

“Pick Tabitha,” she calls after him, the words coming out in a rush, the first time she’s ever really asked him for anything that wasn’t a soundbite.

His head whips around, his eyes searching hers, like he’s looking for confirmation that she’s saying what he thinks she’s saying. She feels tears, horrible salty tears, gathering in her eyes as she nods, feels like the bubble might escape from her mouth, like she might be carried away by it, but when Roman lets out an ecstatic, ridiculous whoop, she feels like it might be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue forthcoming at...some point


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't know who RealitySteve is, count yourself lucky. But he's a dude who blogs about Bachelor Nation and usually can spoil every season for those who are interested. Only visit his site if you want to see bad web design and to be annoyed. Anyway. That's just some context for you.

> **Roman Roy Loses the Way - Star of Bachelor Season has Shocking Ending?  
> ** _3/7/2019_
> 
> Normally I know the end of the season at this point. The cast is announced, the promos have been released, I’ve gotten tips and been able to confirm details. But this season is different. I have a few reports with strange details that don’t really fit the show’s usual narrative and no one willing to come forward with facts. As you know, I don’t report speculation.
> 
> It looks like Roman picks Tabitha at the end of the season. There have been photos of the two of them hugging at the finale location in Croatia, and no photos of Jessica, the supposed runner-up (I do have sources saying she’s being tapped to be the next Bachelorette). But all post-show media suggests that Roman and Tabitha aren’t together, and I’ve heard rumors that Powers That Be are scrambling to re-edit footage to create an alternate storyline, with an ending no one will see coming.
> 
> Will it actually be “the most dramatic season ever” or are they just manufacturing false leads? When I know, you’ll know. Look for the next episode of the podcast where I’ll talk to former Bachelorette Rhea Jarrell about her thoughts on having such a polarizing media figure as the bachelor.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Unfor-Gerri-ble: Show Producer Hinted at Having a Hand in Roy Season  
> ** _3/12/2019_
> 
> Or maybe more than a hand, if sources are to be believed. Roman Roy, lead for Bachelor Season 26, has been spotted with showrunner Gerri Kellman. While it’s not unusual for crew members to spend time with contestants and leads they’ve become close to, I don’t think they usually walk arm in arm through Central Park
> 
> Both had on sunglasses and baseball caps, but eagle-eyed fans recognized them out for an afternoon stroll. Whether they’re more than friends is unconfirmed, but I’ve heard from an anonymous source that Roman snuck a kiss from Gerri before they left the area.
> 
> As always, I can’t comment on how the show ends up, I’m still not certain. Jessica has been away from social media and Tabitha is back in New York as well, though she hasn’t had any Central Park strolls and there is no ring on her finger in any of her Instagram photos.
> 
> Is Gerri the mysterious ending to a season of mysteries? I’m still trying to find that out, but tune in for the next episode of the podcast where I talk with eliminated contestant Grace about the dynamics on set during filming. No spoilers, of course! That’s all in the NDA, but it’s a chance to learn more about Gerri from someone who worked with her.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Was this season Gerri-Roman-dered? Producer and Star Seen Entering Apartment Building Together  
> ** _3/18/2019_
> 
> I had to post as soon as I heard the news and got the photos emailed to me. Roman Roy went home with Gerri Kellman after what looks like a date: drinks and dinner at Daniel. How they got a reservation, I’m not sure.
> 
> They rode the elevator together and what they got up to that night is anyone’s guess.
> 
> What I can posit, based on information from multiple sources, is that Roman chooses Tabitha, and they break up, either right after filming or within a few weeks. It looks amicable - he’s commenting on her Instagram and she’s still following him. Roman and Gerri found some sort of arrangement during filming and picked up where they left off when they thought it was safe to do so. An unexpected ending for a season with a puzzling lead, but I guess that’s what happens when you bring the Roys into your franchise.

“It’s just what happens,” Roman says, reading over Gerri’s shoulder, chin resting against her back. “We make the television everyone wants to watch. It’s a gift.” It’s a closeness Gerri is still getting used to, the regularity of waking up with someone else in her bed, not to mention the fact that her bed is no longer in the mansion but in a room in a house that isn’t on set, that’s half an hour away from her job. And sometimes her bedroom is three timezones away, at the top of an apartment building in New York.

“We, as in your family, or we as in you and me?” she asks, closing out the tab. It’s strange, to read speculation about herself, when she’s spent so much time creating the content that people post about. Now there’s a Reddit thread devoted to digging up her past, people finding articles about Baird, her wedding photos resurfacing. Roman offers to get some people on it, to shut things down, but that feels like a line Gerri doesn’t want to cross.

Not after she’s already crossed so many.

Roman moves away, his hand lingering at her hip, sliding along her back, warm through the thin cotton of her t-shirt, as he puts his coffee mug in the sink. He’s more tactile than she is, checking that she’s there, that she’s real, that they’re doing this.

She’s still not sure exactly what the conversation between Roman and Tabitha entailed, just knows that she was willing to play the end proposal, to accept the hideous Neil Lane ring with the promise that she could sell it, or keep it, or put it in a box in her closet. It’s hers, and Gerri doesn’t need to know anymore about it, doesn’t know if she’ll ever want a ring from Roman, doesn’t know that she doesn’t want one either.

They’ve built a funny sort of life, a trans-continental situation, Roman in New York and Gerri near LA. He’s found business contacts and meetings to have and an endless parade of excuses to take the private plane to see her. She picks him up at the airport, sunglasses and a hat, looking like just another driver, until he leans across the middle panel and kisses her cheek, then her lips. He tucks his hand under her thigh while she drives them home.

First class never seemed worth it until she was flying to JFK airport at least once a month, and now she’s not sure she could live without it. She likes being driven, too, someone else to navigate the busy grid of the city, brought to a penthouse with five bathrooms, a giant tub all for her.

He hasn’t said anything about moving, and she hasn’t either. It’s a dance they do, one of many, while they try to figure things out. She likes her job and the career she’s carved out, but she wouldn’t mind a change of pace, something different. She also doesn’t want to be one of those women who moves across the country for a man. There’s pride to consider.

Roman’s looking at her like he does when she’s gone too silent, when he knows there are thoughts whirling in her head, a problem she’s figuring out before she wants to say it out loud. His head is cocked and his eyes are fond, and it makes her itchy, to be known, but it makes her warm too.

He moves in front of her, urges her onto the table, parts her legs, always bare under the long t-shirts he likes best, told her he never wants her to wear pants in New York, said that her legs were the first thing he loved.

His kiss tastes of coffee, and she wonders what footage they’ll use on his season, knows there are outtakes and b-Roll, times when they laughed together on the sidelines, times when his eyes searched out hers, times when it felt like they were the only people in a room full of fifty. She wraps her ankles around his thighs, holding him close, the pleasant stretch of flexed feet interlocking.

When she kisses him back, he sighs into her mouth, like he’s letting go of worry, or tension, or stress. Like when he kisses her, it’s like coming home.

“You and me,” he says, “We make television everyone will want to watch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S OVER
> 
> Happy New Year, and thanks to everyone who prompted this idea, and enjoyed this, and said nice things.


End file.
